The King of the Desert is the sovereign of the southern desert, found at Zagra, who serves no one, robs caravans, holds the Romans in check and moves through the sand in ways no road explains. His recorded names are Merón Rialar and Ahmed.
| Seat | Zagra |
| Spanish entry | Rey del Desierto |
Names
Both names are recorded as king of the desert, with no lord above him, a magic carpet and the Romans in check; everything matches but the name, and both come down garbled. One king with two names or two overlapping chronicles is unresolved. A third, unconfirmed title is linked to him: “the lord of the moving tents”.
The desert
The southern desert is dunes mixed with rock, arid and farmless, land “the silt with all its nutrients never reached.” Reaching it takes three days; inside, ten hours’ march separate one camp from the next. The ground is “covered with a layer of dust, celisca sand” that can give way; below, “the sands are swirled.” Riding over stony dunes is among the hardest of tasks. Its people are “people of the world of dance, song and the sands”, nomads.
Caravans
He robs caravans yet “has been one of those who has bought the most”, at high prices. Travelers who take the desert routes find “the good refuge of the lord of the moving tents.” The Romans, who move goods, are constrained by him.
Tent and guard
He lives in a tent with guards inside and out. His escort is “half a dozen”: one reading counts four inside and two outside; another reads “half a dozen. Inside. Two outside” as six inside and two outside. “The only strange thing about him is that he goes into the desert and sometimes appears somewhere else.”
Powers
He owns a magic carpet and is credited with a sudden “morning flight” over the desert. Whether flight and vanishing into the sand are one power, and whether either depends on the carpet, is not recorded. One passage shows him disintegrated.
The masts and the face
Landmarks in his desert: the Rey brothers, “alive, but without flesh”, bound to masts, with a giant face between them. That this is the King’s work is not established; the quotation describing the face is illegible.
Extent
The desert also appears in the region of Alexandria, behind the scene of Jericho in the Holy Land, and borders a forest across which its dust blows.
Open questions
- Where Zagra lies relative to the desert, the forest, Alexandria and Jericho; one desert or several.
- Who owns the field of masts; whether the face is sculpture or phenomenon.
- Whether “the lord of the moving tents” is the King or a second power, and whether the King is flesh.
- A single reference to “the last trial of the desert” is unexplained.
- What he buys, how he pays, and to whom he resells stolen goods.